Well DVD burners ought to be cheap. So they are loud while playing DVD, burn DVDs and CDs badly and don't read scratched media well. The german printed magazine C't did a test in their recent issue. Only offline and german, though.
What I can tell you: Always burn with 8x for +-R and with 4x for -+RW. Buy high-quality media. They recommended the ASUS DRW-1814BLT. Summed up, it was the least problematic and quite quiet. Do you have a strong preference for either noise/burn quality/read quality/copy protection reading?

Do you have a strong preference for either noise/burn quality/read quality/copy protection reading?

Burn quality/copy protection reading is most important to me. I would like to avoid considerable noise but if there isn't consistent burns, then the noise becomes redundant, right? I am not sure of the best media to use but I once found two web pages that had descriptions of where the various brands originated (the manufacturers/outsourcing info). From what is locally available, Verbatim was the best choice. Sony was too, but it hardly ever goes on sale.

I have a Lite-On DVDRW SOHW-812S in my current computer but I am not attached to brands and will go with the best quality/price/performance combo regardless of brand.

I am not sure of the best media to use but I once found two web pages that had descriptions of where the various brands originated (the manufacturers/outsourcing info). From what is locally available, Verbatim was the best choice. Sony was too, but it hardly ever goes on sale.

To keep up to date with what is good, bad and ugly on the media front I read current threads at CDfreaks. Verbatim for instance seem to have slipped in the ratings since they tranferred production to India.

I am a rookie in this field but LG H62L (Lightscribe) or LG H62N (No lightscribe) are 18x SATA burners (10x for Dual Layer +/-) and it has the Renesas chipset wich is good (usually superb burn quality).

The LiteOn seems to be amongst the noisiest but are very good at scanning (reading).
LG and Pioneer are amongst the best on write (burn) quality on good DVD media (obviously less good at scanning).

7 contestants, and 5 discs make 35 permutations. Only 5 of these permutation produced "good" results at default speed. 7 had errors right from the start. You see how grave the situation is.

If you need a CD-Audio monster, go with the Lite-On LH-20A1S. It's ignoring all 8 copy protections tested and has good reading qualities. The Asus reads only 4 but also has good quality reading.
Downsides of the Lite-On compared to the Asus: Slow DVD-RAM burning, slow Vista live filesystem burning, bad reading quality of CD with stains/scratches, noisier at reading. Recommendes write speeds for the mediums tested: 12x/12x/8x/4x/24x
Downsides of the Asus compared to the rest of the field: only 4th place in DVD-Video reading noise, fails to read DVD with very high jitter (2 units read it), recommended write speeds: 8x/16x/8x/8x/48x

Best DVD-R burn quality: Plextor. But it fails on DVD+RW (do not use) and CD-R (recommended: 16x), DVD-RAM access time and DVD-Video noise.

Yes LG Electronics GSA-H55N (used in the test) has a Panasonic chipset. They are not top notch.
Also the latest Panasonic are reported to be less good than the older 111D and 112D drives (i think).

I am slightly inclined to buy the LiteOn 20x external (USB) burner, hoping it is as good as the tested one.
Seems to be one of the better fast (18-20x =newest) DVD drives.
I will probably have to buy a good burning DVD player in the future too then.

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